On Tuesday, June 23, 2015 at 4:59:38 PM UTC-4, tony944 wrote:
"trader_4" wrote in message
...
On Tuesday, June 23, 2015 at 9:44:04 AM UTC-4, Dennis Osgood wrote:
replying to hr(bob) , Dennis Osgood wrote:
hrhofmann wrote:
Yeah - They're worried you would use a lamp cord type extension cord,
or one of those kight-weight orange or green outdoor extension cords
that are fine for small leafb;lowers, but not much else. If you gat
an extension cord with 14 ga wire, it should be ok, a 12 gauge wire
would be better. If it is only 10 feet or so long, it is not any
different than if the freezer was on a circuit that was 10 ft feet
farther from the circuit breaker or fuse box. Make sure the prongs
and the female end of the extension cord are secure, ir, the mating
plugs are making good contact to eliinate any overrrrrheating at the
plug-in points. Then check it out once in a while to see that things
are still fine.
Good idea to ask, you are on the right track.
B..ob Hofmann
I had an 11,000 BTU window air conditioner hooked to a 100 ft extension
cord because I needed an additional 4-5 feet of cord. The a/c was not
working well at all. An electrician told me that the extension cord was
the problem. Get rid of the cord (or shorten it considerably to only what
I needed) and it will work. I did, and it worked great.
Just last week my daughter said that her new freezer was not freezing --
her food was thawed out but still cold enough to cook. I looked at the
freezer and her husband had hooked a 100 ft extension cord to the freezer
because the freezer cord was 2 ft too short. I remembered what the
electrician said about my a/c unit, and we moved the freezer to a new
outlet. The food was frozen in just a few hours.
(
I have read many articles both pro and con about voltage drops in
extension cords. Apparently not everyone agrees with the established
theories of electrical engineering. The electrician never did tell me why
the extension cord was the problem. All I know is that removing the
extension cord caused both the a/c and the freezer to work well.
--
You've identified the problem, voltage drop. The conductors have
to be sized for the load. An 11,000 BTU AC is a large load. It
also has a large initial startup current. That current over a
100 ft 16 gauge extension has considerable voltage drop. If the
extension cord was 10 or 12 gauge, it would work, but it's still
not advisable. The issue should be much less with a modern fridge
or freezer. They typically only pull ~90W or so. Bottom line you
want to use a short extension cord that is heavy enough for the load.
90 watts where the heck did you get that info.
It's widely available, just look. That's what refrigerators
and freezers made in the last decade or so consume.
Must efficient unit will draw about 10 Amps. that mean 1200 watts
on 120 volts.
Are you thinking AC instead of fridge/freezer? I said fridge/freezer
pulls 90W and that an 11,000 BTU AC is a "large load".